Siri raise to speak not working

I thought I was having the same problem, then I discovered I have to raise the watch really vertical (as with the screen "L perpendicular" to the floor) and speak with a medium-to-high volume voice.

You need to raise your watch and put it close to your mouth.

And if you don't want to put the watch so close to your mouth, you can still say "hey Siri" - but the watch needs one or the other to let it know that you want to activate Siri.

MacRumors has a good article about it -

https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/use-siri-raise-to-speak-watchos-5/

This was the answer ... been trying to figure out why it hasn't been working properly ... tried changing the orientation of the watch face to vertical as you described ... works every time now.

Thanks!

I don't think the watch has a proximity sensor, so it doesn't know if it's close to your mouth or far at arm's length distance. In both cases I see it works the same. Of course you'll have to speak a little louder if it's not close.

I got the same impression, but then I tried to go where my wifi reception is better. Furthermore you should try to make your question as soon as your arm is still being raised even if the watch hasn't reached the mouth's height, for me it works well now. Or possibly there is some interference in the bluetooth range between your phone and watch?

No, not a proximity sensor and I don't mean that you need to put it right up near your lips. Just closer than you would normally do if you were looking at the time. I think it does either detect the volume (so speaking louder should work too), or by putting it closer to your mouth you may naturally make it more vertical as you suggested.

My iPhone X and Apple Watch 3 (GPS + Cellular) are paired perfectly on same Wifi network.

Settings on watch have both “Hey Siri” and “Raise to Speak” enabled.

No matter what I do, raising my wrist will not enable Siri, including an attempt at rebooting my watch running on OS5.

Just picked up my Series 4 today and the “Raise to Speak” feature for at least me works when my arm is at the vertical position along side my body, I then will wake my watch and ask a question once the watch is close to my mouth. I noticed that while I am sitting in my recliner that if I wake my watch, raise it to my mouth and ask a question I get no response because again my arm is not being brought up from the vertical position.

I was having the same problems and it does boil down to the orientation of your arm when you issue the command.

I can get it working every time by raising my arm in such a way that I am speaking normally to the digital crown “side” of the watch, with my voice directed “down the back” side of my left hand. Essentially after raising my arm correctly, I can see the display, but envision the watch’s screen facing just over your left shoulder (assuming the watch is on your left arm).

Hope that helps! Unfortunately the whole “I’ll tap you when I’m ready” is still a problem on Series 4...

I tried to your suggestions but was not able to get it consistently working. Here is a link that gives a visual how it should work. Your mileage may var.

How to Use the Siri Raise to Speak Feature in watchOS 5 - YouTube

doesn't work for me either. think there's a bug. feature should work easily and instinctively like looking at the time. I've tried a million "arm positions' talking to it practically shoving it in my mouth. NOTHING WORKS

FAIL

I had the same issue with Siri Raise To Speak not working and had initially formulated my frustration in an earlier response in this thread.

I solved my own problem by accident.

1) I already had Siri Raise to Speak enabled in Settings in my Watch.

2) I DID NOT have WAKE SCREEN ON WRIST RAISE enabled, however, in Settings on my Watch. After I enabled this feature, all I have to do is complete the wrist raise, my screen then wakes up, and if I start speaking to Siri, it works flawlessly.

I really did not want to have my watch set up to wake on screen raise, but I am under the impression that unless I enable this feature, Raise to Speak with Siri will not work.

This worked for me on my Apple Watch Series 3 (GPS + Cellular).

AjaKat wrote:

I really did not want to have my watch set up to wake on screen raise, but I am under the impression that unless I enable this feature, Raise to Speak with Siri will not work.

That's a good point, and it also applies to "Theater Mode" - "raise to speak" will not activate if Theater Mode is turned on (since it disables the raise to wake feature temporarily).

Up until now the screen was pretty much the entire interface to the watch, so naming the setting "wake screen" made some sense. But technically what it really does is "wake watch" (not just the screen), so of course that includes Siri. I'm willing to bet that watchOS 5.2 renames the setting.